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Demopolis, Alabama · Marengo County

French Door Repair in Demopolis, AL

The characteristic French door problem is the doors rubbing where they meet. That is almost always hinge sag on one or both leaves, and it gets blamed on the doors swelling far more often than swelling is actually responsible.

  • Repair first, replace last
  • Homes & businesses
  • Marengo County covered
  • Straight answers on the phone

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French Door Repair diagram
French Door Repair — Demopolis, Alabama

If you are anywhere between Downtown Demopolis and the US-80 corridor, or out toward Gaineswood, we cover it, along with the rest of Marengo County.

Demopolis has enough older housing stock that repair almost always beats replacement here, and enough new construction that we spend a lot of time on hardware that failed early.

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

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When to call about french door repair

These are the french door repair faults we are called out to most often in Demopolis. If you recognise one, the underlying cause is usually the second half of the line.

  • Daylight visible along the astragalWeatherstrip compressed flat or missing entirely.
  • The multipoint locks at the top but not the bottomThe active leaf has dropped, so the lower keeper is now below the shootbolt.
  • The doors bind in summer and are loose in winterSeasonal wood movement compounding an existing alignment problem.
  • The multipoint lock will not throwThe door is not sitting in the frame correctly, so the lock points do not line up with their keepers.
  • A visible gap at the top or bottom of the meeting stileThe pair is out of alignment and no longer parallel.
  • The inactive leaf will not stay putFailed flush bolts at the head and sill.

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

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What we see on french door repair around Marengo County

Black Belt soil is the reason so many doors in this part of Alabama do not close right. That dark prairie clay swells dramatically when saturated and shrinks in a dry August, and a house sitting on it moves with it.

Humidity swells both leaves toward each other, and since the meeting stile is where the two doors already have the tightest clearance, that is where a French door pair binds first every summer.

The bottom of the meeting stile is the hardest place on a house to keep watertight, and heavy rain against a French door pair will find any weakness in the sill seal or the threshold there.

It is why the same repair done properly in Demopolis lasts, and the same repair done cheaply does not.

Local factors we account for in Demopolis: sustained humidity and heavy rainfall — typical of the Black Belt.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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French door repair work we handle in Demopolis

  • Frame squaringCorrecting frames that have moved and taken the doors out with them.
  • Individual lite glass replacementReplacing failed or broken glass in single lites without replacing the whole door.
  • Multipoint lock repairRepairing and replacing multipoint gearboxes, drive rods and keepers.
  • Hinge repair and re-hangingCorrecting sag with proper fasteners into framing and re-hanging leaves plumb.
  • Alignment and reveal correctionSetting both leaves so the reveal is even and the doors meet cleanly top to bottom.
  • Astragal and weatherstrip replacementNew seals on the meeting stile so the middle joint actually closes.
  • Threshold and sill workNew adjustable thresholds and sill seals under a pair of doors.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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How we approach french door repair

  1. Look at the pair as one assemblyFrench doors fail as a pair. Adjusting one leaf without reference to the other just moves the problem across.
  2. Check each leaf on its ownWith the inactive leaf bolted, we test the active one, then reverse it. Faults that look shared usually are not. On prairie clay we look at the whole opening for racking, because a door here is usually reporting a foundation movement rather than a hardware fault.
  3. Correct the hinges before the hardwareMultipoint locks and flush bolts cannot be adjusted into working if the door is sitting in the wrong place.
  4. Rebuild the seal at the meeting stileAstragal weatherstrip is the hardest working seal on the door and it is usually the one that has been ignored.
  5. Set the locking hardwareMultipoint points and flush bolts engaged cleanly with no lifting or pulling required.
  6. Check it seals along its lengthWe look for daylight and feel for draft down the full height of the meeting stile, not just at eye level.

Most doors we see are repairable.Call and find out before you price a replacement.

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What affects the cost of french door repair in Demopolis

There is no single price for french door repair in Demopolis, because two doors with identical symptoms can need very different work. Here is what makes the difference:

  • multipoint lock repair versus full gearbox replacement
  • whether the frame itself has moved and needs correcting
  • interior versus exterior pairs, since exterior work includes weatherproofing
  • glass replacement in individual lites
  • whether one leaf or both need re-hanging

Call and describe what the door is doing. In most cases we can tell you over the phone which of those applies to you before anyone drives out to Demopolis.

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

Click to Call (205) 619-2895

Areas we cover for french door repair in Demopolis

Coverage in Demopolis takes in Downtown Demopolis, the US-80 corridor and the Highway 43 corridor, plus everything around Gaineswood, Bluff Hall and the Tombigbee and Black Warrior confluence.

Service area: Demopolis, Marengo County, Alabama — and the surrounding communities.

We also cover the nearby Marengo County and the Black Belt communities listed further down this page.

Get a real diagnosis, not a sales pitch.We fix doors for a living.

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French door repair in Demopolis: questions we get asked

How do I stop water coming in under my French doors?

Usually the threshold seal and the sill pan. A pair of exterior French doors has a hard job at the bottom of the meeting stile, and in Marengo County storms that is where water finds its way in.

Can sagging French doors be fixed without replacing them?

Yes, and it is the usual outcome. The fix is proper hinge repair with fasteners reaching the structural framing, plus re-hanging the leaf plumb. Replacing a pair of French doors is a large job by comparison.

The inactive door keeps moving when I close the active one. Why?

The flush bolts at the top and bottom of the inactive leaf have failed or are no longer reaching their keepers. Both need to be solidly engaged or the whole pair loses its reference point.

My French doors rub in the middle. Is that because the wood swelled?

Usually not. Nine times out of ten it is hinge sag on one leaf, and the giveaway is that the rub is worse at one end of the joint than the other. Real swelling affects the whole edge evenly and comes and goes with the season.

There is a draft right down the middle of my French doors. What fixes it?

The astragal weatherstrip on the meeting stile. It compresses flat over time and stops sealing, and it is a straightforward replacement that makes a large difference in Demopolis winters.

Can one lite of glass be replaced or does the whole door need doing?

Individual lites can normally be replaced on their own. That is one of the advantages of a true divided or simulated divided light door.

One call gets you an answer.We will tell you what is wrong and what it takes to fix.

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Other door repair services in Demopolis


French Door Repair near Demopolis

We cover the surrounding Marengo County and the Black Belt communities as well:

All door repair services in Demopolis  ·  French Door Repair across Alabama  ·  All Alabama service areas

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

Click to Call (205) 619-2895
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